Lawns

Minder

I have a well planted garden at the back of the house that has a number of trees both in the borders and in the middle of the lawn. The condition of the lawn is best described a slightly scruffy. I have avoided cutting it low to try and keep it green during the summer, have applied weed & feed to remove large amounts of moss and trimmed back some of the trees to give better light. I collect all the clippings after mowing and have tried to aerate the soil with a hollow tine fork.

It is slowly coming on. With a large amount of tree roots in the soil, am I wasting my effort to improve the lawn - should I stop now and settle for how it is, or will it continue to improve if I feed and weed it?

Thanks

dh0661

How deep are the tree roots, or are they coming through the surface of the lawn ?.

Minder

No tree roots through the surface.

dh0661

My dad does all the work in our garden, same as yours by the sound of things. He cuts grass down to as low as the lawnmower will go at this time of year and then he spreads it with some kind of ??? - he calls it potato fertiliser, I know that it's made by Gouldings and has a # like 17-6-17, cant contact him at the moment to check, he gets this in the local agri shop.
Anyway our lawn is the greenest on the estate at present, and makes the neighbours green with envy.:P
My dads away on holidays for another week, but when he is back I'll find out the proper name of the fertiliser and post back.

muggyog

Fertiliser is measured in Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K).
N for leaf growth, P for root growth and K for flower growth. So for green grass you need the first number to be high (lots of Nitrogen!). Dont spread it when the weather is dry ( Ha Ha ) or in too high concentrates because you will burn the lawn.

dh0661

dh0661 wrote: »

My dads away on holidays for another week, but when he is back I'll find out the proper name of the fertiliser and post back.

Hi back again - the proper of the name of the fertiliser I was talking about is "Grassland 7 : 6 : 17 with sulphur" , It comes in a 50kg bag @ €26-00, spread @ # 1.5 if using spreader, after every cutting until your happy with the condition of your lawn.

muggyog

dh0661, I have to disagree with your dad on this one. He is correct to call it potato fertiliser as it is high in Potassium (K) [or Potash (K2O) its oxide form], which potatoes need. Grass on the other hand needs Nitrogen (N) more. Dont just take my word for it go to http://www.carrs-fertiliser.co.uk/fieldchoicefirstchoice/fieldchoicefirstchoice3.html and look at the combinations. Just to make it clear we only differ on the proportions of NPK, any fertilising will be good for the lawn. Apparently 30% of Irish commercial grassland is deficient in Sulphur so its no harm to top up this element.

I have gone to the Gouldings website and read their technical bulletin on fertiliser (http://www.gouldings.ie/downloads/Gouldings_Bulletin.doc) and have extracted one point from the 33 page document.

Its this: The most effective input available to the grassland farmer to increase grass yields is the timely application of fertiliser particularly Nitrogen (N).

dh0661

muggyog wrote: »

dh0661, I have to disagree with your dad on this one.[URL="http://"][/URL]

All I know, is that the grass is greener on our side of the fence :P:p:P. And that's good enough for me. I forgot to mention on previous post that my dad also sprays the lawn with "D50" herbicide every couple of weeks, at this time of the year.